


Only Love is All Maroon

by chaekmate (usernamewhatamidoing)



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2018-12-26 14:07:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12060546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usernamewhatamidoing/pseuds/chaekmate
Summary: Jihyo makes her living cleaning rooms, which is fine by her because she knows at the end of the night she’ll always have something to look forward to.





	1. After Hours

**Author's Note:**

> Not really sure what this story is supposed to be but I guess I’ll figure it out as I go along (title taken from Bon Iver, _Flume_ ). Also, important note: this story will be marked [M] for the following: violence/gore/language/---

The smell hits her as soon as she opens the door. 

It's pungent and sour and leaves her reaching back to pull the the face mask higher up on the bridge of her nose. 

Setting the deadbolt in place, Jihyo places the large duffle she carried on the floor and moved to survey the scene. 

The furniture was left carelessly overturned, the sheets of the bed were ripped and crumpled, and picture frames hung askew on the walls. 

They could have at least _tried_ to keep it decent looking, but, she supposed she’d be out a job if that were the case. 

Another wave of smell washes over her and she cracks the only available window open; eyes catching the sliver of light seeping in from behind the closed bathroom door in the reflection of the glass. 

The door is mainly intact, but, from experience she knows to never be too optimistic. Pushing it slightly, it opens with a creak and she doesn’t have to look further to find the formerly white tile sticky and red from the aftermath. 

Jihyo lets out an audible groan and decides to forgo righting the main room for now. 

Getting blood out of grout was a and she was going to let Jeongyeon have it later. 

//

“The usual please.” She speaks without looking up from where she's digging in her pocket.

“Sure.” 

A pack of cigarettes slide across the counter and she mindlessly hands over a five dollar bill in exchange. 

“What’s this?” Jihyo asks, taking the cigarettes and inspecting the other box that came with it. 

“It’s gum and it’s on the house.” 

“Oh, have some plans for me later?” 

“Maybe, you know I hate the taste of smoke.” 

“Right, sorry about that.” 

The cashier rolls their eyes and moves out from behind the counter, allowing Jihyo to reach out and catch them by the hand to pull them closer. “Sana, no need to be pissy, when do you get off?”

“Depends, when are you going to take me on a date?”

There’s a double entendre there and it makes Jihyo blush and smirk at the same time. “Tomorrow night, you and I go get dinner at that nice place on sixth and then we can do whatever you want.”

“Whatever I want huh?” Sana smiles and leans close enough for her to smell their perfume. 

“Yeah, whatever you want.”

There’s a moments of quiet and she feels like if she just tilted her head to little to the left and leaned _just_ a bit closer their lips could touch, but before she can Sana leans back and gives her a bight smile. “Okay! See you tomorrow then!” 

The latter starts to back away slowly, coy smile still in place, and it makes her heart do weird things. 

“Jihyo?”

“Yeah.”

“You missed a spot.”

She blinks and looks down at her shirt to see that there was indeed, a large patch of red permeating the cuffed part of her sleeve. 

(She laughs it off but knows Sana is actually pretty perceptive, but if they’re curious they never comment).

-

(That’s really it though, they don’t ask questions. 

And Jihyo thinks that's a lot of why their relationship actually works.)

//

“So, there’s a meeting coming up with some of the bigwigs. The one Tzuyu has been trailing at least.” Jeongyeon gets out as they continue to tear apart the sub sandwich sandwich they were eating.

“Can you be any more disgusting?” Nayeon scowls, affronted by the other. 

“What?” Jeongyeon asks, letting some bits of chewed food to fall out of their mouth. 

“Okay,” Chaeyoung laughs nervously, trying to defuse the tense atmosphere, “Let’s move on to- the budget! How’s that coming along Nayeon?”

“It’s finished, I set you all a copy to your e-mail.”

“Did you happen to expand the funds for the weapons inventory?” Tzuyu pipes up from her place on the sofa. 

“For the last time, there’s no need to budget for a rocket launcher, why the hell would you even need so much fire power?” Nayeon shakes their head. 

“It’s always better to be prepared.” Tzuyu grumbles, but immediately goes back to playing on their phone. 

“I’m taking off tomorrow night.” Jihyo casually slips out, getting up to retrieve her personal bag from her locker. 

“What? Since when?” Jeongyeon, who had finally stopped eating questioned.

“Since I haven’t taken off in like, a month? Plus, Dahyun is back so she can cover for me.” 

“But she never does a good a job as you.”

“But she does it, right?”

“Um, I have no problems covering for you but I’m going to need someone else to come with me because extracting the body could be difficult with my arm situation.” Dahyun gestured to her right arm which was currently covered in a cast. 

“Urgh, fine, Jihyo- even though you didn’t ask- you can take off. Dahyun, you and Chaeyoung are on clean up,” Jeongyeon eyes her pointedly. 

“Thank you,” She gave a sweet smile before heading towards the exit, “see you guys on Sunday.”

She doesn’t wait for a response before setting off to her apartment, eager for a hot shower and a good nap. 


	2. I Said We Were Opposite Lovers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, just a quick note, things in italics are mean to be flashbacks. Also, if this chapter is kind of confusing I apologize, hopefully chapter three will make things clearer. As always thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!

//

_“Do it.”_

_There’s a pause and she blinks._

_“Why?”_

_It’s dark where she is, but she can feel them and they’re close- the warm puffs of air on her face indicate as much._

_Her hand is heavy and cold, and when she asks again, why? She doesn’t get a response._

_(There has to be a reason, a purpose, this much she knows)._

_“It’s easy, I’ll help you.”_

_“I don’t need help.” She moves to take a step back but ends up bumping into the other, their breath ghosting over her ear._

_“Then I’ll do it for you.”_

_The weight disappears and there’s a bright flash._

_(Her hand doesn’t feel cold anymore)._

// 

They were currently packed into a tiny black sedan driving towards a work site and she feels like she’s suffocating. The stale air and heat outside made the seats sticky despite the air conditioning being on full blast, and Jihyo couldn’t help but to fidget in anticipation. 

“You okay?” Mina eyed her over the glow of their laptop. 

“Yeah, just ready to get out and stretch.” 

“We should be arriving soon.” 

She hums, tugging a bit harder at the seatbelt that continued to dig into her neck, only finding relief once she sees they had finally made it into the town. 

The streets were dark and the area certainly wasn’t the best, but it was perfect for them to hole up in and wait. 

“I’m going in to get a key, you guys need anything else?” Chaeyoung asked, turning the car off and heading in the direction of the office. 

“You think they have a vending machine here?” Tzuyu pokes their head out of the trunk where they were unloading their bags. 

“Probably? I think I saw some when we pulled in.”

“Ok, I’m coming with you.”

Watching the younger two race to the front, Jihyo couldn’t contain her chuckle of fondness. “They really are just two kids aren’t they."

“Kids? You aren’t that much older.” Mina scoffed, leaning against the car watching her continue to unload the luggage.

“Still counts.”

“Mm, I guess. Want some?”

She looks up to see the other offering her a thinly rolled piece of paper. “Where the hell did you get that?”

“It’s clean,” Mina looked away, “and free. So, you want some or not?”

“This is from the last job isn’t it.” Jihyo said as she dug a lighter out of her pocket.

“It was a stressful week.” Mina shrugged.

“And this helps?” She eyes them skeptically despite taking a rather indulgent drag.

“Sometimes. Jeongyeon too.”

“Oh?” She sighs as she feels her muscles start to relax. “That’s new."

//

_She takes to staring at the ceiling fan, counting the seconds for it to make a full rotation and notes that despite how the air being pushed down on her is warm, it leaves her shivering._

_Sana sighs and nuzzles closer to her in the darkness, leg thrown carelessly over her hip._

_It was easy to think of them in that context- easy to imagine Sana was just the girl who sold her cigarettes at the convince store and easy to image that she just cleaned hotel rooms for a living._

_"Are you free sometime next week?" Sana's whispers as they toy with a loose strand of hair._

_"Probably."_

_"There's a new movie coming out and I want to go see it, come with me."_

-

_(But it wasn't simple, because Sana wasn't just the girl who sold her cigarettes, and she didn't just clean rooms._

_Regardless, she reveled in the feeling Sana granted her._

_Like when they sent her simple texts late at night asking how her day was, or when they held her hand on walks around the park._

_And it was those fleeting moments that made it worth the uncertainty)._

//

The room is small, and made even smaller as Mina and Chaeyoung take to setting up their surveillance gear. 

"They said they would be done early in the morning. We're supposed to go in right after and then check out before nine." Chaeyoung rattled off, plugging in the last of the monitors.

(And that's what half the job is, really, simply a waiting game until their client finishes off the target and leaves the rest for them.)

By the time they're informed the room is ready it's already a quarter past four and Jihyo has to roll her eyes because she'd worked with these people before and they were _always_ late. 

Still, she shrugged her jacket on and signaled for Tzuyu to follow her to the second floor of the motel.

The scene that greets them behind door 36 isn't anything new, with blood littering the most unsuspecting surfaces and three bodies laying unmoving in their slumped positions. 

"You can start bagging those three while I check the rest of the room okay?" Jihyo spoke, already moving further into the room without waiting for a response.

\- 

The rest is fairly routine, resetting the furniture to its rightful state and adding new items where the old ones were unclean-able.

They finish with 20 minutes to spare and confidently wheel the cart down to the parking lot where they heave the body bag into the trunk of the car along with three bags filled to capacity with bloodied rags and the like.

Chaeyoung and Mina had already checked out and were waiting for them.

-

(Most would probably say it they were too open- too transparent with their dealings by doing such things in broad daylight. 

And perhaps they were right in that sense, but if there was one thing Jihyo had learned in her life, it was that in places like these, no one cares about anyone except for themselves.)

//

_In her prime, she was always eager to please, always eager to succeed._

_Now was no different, except, that it was, in every aspect; it was less official, less prestigious, less crude._

_And every now and then she would reminisce how nice it would be to have a lab instead of a warehouse and use actual medical equipment rather than rusted junk yard tools._

_But that was a time when she didn't have Sana so really, the frills of being a chief medical examiner were pointless._

//

"You're awfully quiet, do you not like it?" Sana asks, pausing their own chewing to look at her.

"Mm? No, no, I do it's delicious thanks." She forces a smile and takes a bite of her meal.

Sana isn't swayed though. "Did you take something?" 

"No, I mean, just a little." She shrugged her shoulders knowing exactly what they meant. "I just, wasn't really into it today, you know?" 

"I know, but we still have quite some time to kill and I'd rather you didn't spend all of it overthinking things."

Jihyo pokes her tongue into her cheek and eyes the other, unamused by their words. "Aren't you bored?"

"Not really," Sana smiles easily, "Of course it's always a plus when I get to see you." 

She mindlessly stabs her fork into the mess on her plate before sighing. "I missed you." 

"I missed you too."

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Starting another story here, but to be honest I'm not sure how it'll go. Updates will vary in speed, thanks so much for reading, and as always I hope you've enjoyed :)


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